Herbert Smith Freehills’ (HSF’s) first full financial results post merger has seen it unveil revenues of £800m and profit per equity partner (PEP) of £741,000 for 2013/14.
The firm’s net income stood at £232m.
In July last year the top 10 UK firm reported revenues of £471.2m for only the seven months from October 2012 to April 2013 that the merger had been in effect.
Extrapolated over a year the revenue figure was estimated to be £796m and the firm’s full 2012/13 numbers have not been published, however it claimed today that its 2013/14 revenue of £800m was a 5% increase on the previous year, suggesting that last year’s revenue figure was just over £760m.
Sonya Leydecker, HSF’s joint-CEO, told Legal Business: ‘It’s been a year of two parts for quite a lot of our non-contentious practices, with challenging economic conditions in the first half of the year followed by a return of market confidence and with that the return of transactional activity. That was true across the world.
‘This year we’ve internationalised the practices and had a much greater focus on promoting our sector expertise. We’ve been working hard on our client relationships and professionalising systems for dealing with that. UK revenues were up on the back of a very strong disputes performance but also the transactional practices coming back in the second half. Germany is producing good revenues in our first year there and our New York office, which launched in 2012, is profitable and successful in its own right but having New York law capabilities is a great addition for clients right across the network and it wins us work.
‘What’s helped us the most is the flows across regions, with much greater cross-office working over the last year than previously, particularly across Australia and Asia and there are numerous examples of matters where we wouldn’t have run work as separate firms but joined up we do.’
The firm experienced strong growth in the UK, China and Germany, where it is currently recruiting, having opened its first German offices in Frankfurt and Berlin in April 2013 and made its fifth partner hire in the country in June, with the arrival of finance specialist Kai Liebrich from Mayer Brown.
HSF brought together the previously separate remuneration structures of Herbert Smith and Freehills earlier this year and joint-CEO Mark Rigotti told Legal Business that ‘the global profit pool is designed to make us joined up and a truly global business as we seek to become the leading firm in Asia Pacific’.
Tom.moore@legalease.co.uk
